I have always thought that the cast members with brooms and dustpans wandering our parks are some of the most important people in the whole Company. You guys are where the rubber meets the road -- you're constantly patrolling the stage, so you know everything that's going on. More than anyone else, you keep the stage up to standards. Finally, and just as importantly, you're interacting with guests when they need the most help, whether it's something as innocuous as asking when the Park closes, to something as frantic as an injury or lost child.

I'll never forget some stories another attorney told me when we were attending a bar seminar at the Swan, a few years ago. She didn't know I had any connection to Disney, and she told me she'd been to WDW 34 times. I asked if she'd been to Universal. She said the one time she went there, she asked an employee for directions, and the guy was dismissive and didn't want to answer. She told him that he shouldn't be so rude to customers. He said, "Who cares? This isn't Disney. I can say what I want." She left and never went back.

Then she told me another story: She lost her child in the Magic Kingdom, rushed around, panicking and crying, and the first person she encountered -- a "custodian" -- calmly took control of the situation and directed her to the meeting place and stayed with her, and a few minutes later another CM (you guessed it, another "custodian") brought in her child. There were tears in her eyes as she told me this story, guys, and as a mother, I knew exactly how she felt. And as a (secret) shareholder and cast member, I've never felt so proud. That one incident defined her relationship with Disney for the next several decades.

You guys define the brand for hundreds of thousands of guests a year -- maybe even millions -- more than Store CMs, more than the attractions CMs, and certainly more than all of the Bubble Boys cloistered in the Team Disney Building, put together.

There are two schools of thought on this question. Some will say if you work for Disney, you are a cast member. Others, myself included, consider a cast member as a Disney employee who is seen by the customers. Like making a movie. You have cast and crew. The cast is in front of the camera, the crew behind it.

>>>There are two schools of thought on this question. Some will say if you work for Disney, you are a cast member. Others, myself included, consider a cast member as a Disney employee who is seen by the customers. Like making a movie. You have cast and crew. The cast is in front of the camera, the crew behind it. <<<

Both are correct. In Traditions one is taught that every employee is a castmember from the bottom on up to the top big cheese (his initials are M.E.). Of course I started with the company 6 years ago. Perhaps they no longer teach that in Traditions anymore.

But, yes you are most DEFINATELY a "Castmember" if you are out on stage in the guest area.